Removing Reams may prove costly 'rookie' move

Friday

May 9, 2014 at 2:00 AMMay 9, 2014 at 9:58 AM

Six months after Rockingham County Attorney Jim Reams was stripped of his prosecutorial power and put on paid administrative leave, the Hampton resident is back at work at the job voters elected him to do.

Six months after Rockingham County Attorney Jim Reams was stripped of his prosecutorial power and put on paid administrative leave, the Hampton resident is back at work at the job voters elected him to do.

What was billed as a criminal investigation into his office by state and federal officials, has now been reduced to a 25-page removal complaint accusing him of sexual harassment and discrimination, of failing to disclose that a victim advocate had credibility problems, and of mismanaging funds in state and federal crime forfeiture accounts.

All the accusations are troubling if true but do not rise to the level of criminal proceedings. If criminal wrongdoing was done, Reams would have been charged by now.

It appears Attorney General Joseph Foster jumped the gun. We believe an investigation should be conducted into Foster's decision to remove Reams. Foster owes the public an explanation.

The issue here is that Reams, a Republican, is an elected official who was essentially removed over allegations of wrongdoing by an attorney general appointed by a Democratic governor. Allegations alone, as the court recently upheld leading to Reams' reinstatement, cannot result in the removal of elected officials. Reams may be "unfit to be the county's chief law enforcement officer," as the attorney general claims, but apparently the voters disagree, as they elected him eight times.

There needs to be due process and, under the law, Reams is innocent until proven guilty. Reams, for the record, has called allegations against him "at best, misplaced and exaggerated, and at worst, false."

Foster opened the door to a dangerous precedent by removing Reams from office, especially since under state law, there is no mechanism for the attorney general to "summarily remove a county attorney pending institution of removal proceedings."

It appears the attorney general's office was relying on a 1975 state Supreme Court case when it made the decision to remove Reams. But the case in question involved a county attorney who was charged with a crime. In that case, the court ruled that temporary suspension of the county attorney from the exercise of his law enforcement duties while criminal charges are pending against him "falls within both the statutory and common law powers of the attorney general."

The prosecutors at the attorney general's office had to know that removing Reams without charging him with a crime was a stretch. Maybe they went forward to protect the employees in the county attorney's office, as the accusations were serious. But the fact is, they gambled in hopes of finding a "smoking gun" and lost.

But, of course, this is not a game, and the actions of Foster and his office are unacceptable. The handling of this case shakes the confidence in the state's top law enforcement official and his staff.

Foster was appointed by Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan and was a former lobbyist and Democratic state senator and representative, and some have accused him of being on a political witch hunt. We don't believe that to be the case, but his own actions are the cause for this perception among some in the public, particularly county Republicans.

The more likely scenario is that Foster, whose specialty is bankruptcy law and who has no substantive experience as a criminal prosecutor, made a rookie mistake. But it was a serious mistake, to be sure. Removing an elected official should only be done when there is a preponderance of evidence, when continuance in the office poses a risk to the public and, ideally, after criminal charges have been filed.

Foster and his team didn't meet any of these thresholds and have undermined the credibility of the New Hampshire attorney general's office.

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